Paul Ryan's life is pain, which is precisely what he deserves. https://t.co/RhQlmkOyfM
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 4, 2016
Back in the halcyon days of last week, Politico worried about “Paul Ryan’s treacherous political future”:
…[T]he speaker’s allies have become keenly aware of his precarious political future, the daunting challenge of governing under a President Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and the rough task of rebuilding a GOP that many Hill Republicans believe has been overrun by anti-free trade populists who favor bombastic bomb-throwing over thoughtful policy discussions. All while weighing the possibility of his own bid for president, which Ryan did not rule out in a speech on Wednesday.
Whether he goes that route or not, Ryan is likely in for a tumultous next few years. If Trump wins and Ryan retains the speakership, the Wisconsin Republican will be forced to continue to wedge his positions into Trump’s alternate Republican universe.
If Clinton wins, Ryan will have to preside over a slimmed Republican majority, more heavily populated with burn-the-house-down conservatives. He’ll have to cut deals and do business with Hillary Clinton — a woman he’s met with privately just twice — while at the same time keeping conservatives content.
It’s a governing scenario that people close to him are beginning to envision, according to multiple sources in his political orbit — and not a particularly pleasant one…
Today, from Buzzfeed‘s underrated snarkster McKay Coppins:
"He wishes someone else could take the cup from him…I’d say ‘weary martyr’ is a good way to describe [Paul Ryan].” https://t.co/PuMohIOll3
— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) October 4, 2016
… In the four months since he formally endorsed his party’s nominee for president, Ryan — the esteemed Speaker of the House, the sterling guardian of conservatism, the intellectual leader of the Republican Party — has been reduced to a miserable Trump flunky sheepishly counting down the hours until the election is over. Each day he spends tethered to the Donald seems to bring some fresh humiliation; each role he inhabits in the entourage proves more undignified than the last. Adviser, apologist, hype man, scold — none brings redemption, or even reprieve. And so he trudges on toward November, a stench of sadness clinging to him as he goes.
Friends and allies, disappointed though many of them are, have tried to show Ryan support in this difficult time. They labor to give him the benefit of the doubt, to rationalize his endorsement — and when they’re defending his honor on the record, they might even find themselves slipping into Messianic metaphors…
“I think he endorsed Trump because he tries to see the best in people, and he hoped that his endorsement would be a down payment on a new and improved Trump,” said Katie Packer, a friend of Ryan’s who served as Mitt Romney’s deputy campaign manager in 2012.
“Unfortunately,” she added, Ryan’s policy agenda “has been hijacked by Donald Trump,” and “I think there will be some who find it hard to forgive his support” of the nominee.
Sources close to the Speaker said he endorsed Trump in June in hopes of gaining access to the candidate’s inner-circle and steering him away from his more destructive behavior. Ryan also believed he could convince Trump to infuse his platform with more orthodox conservative policy…
Translation from the weaselspeak: Ryan hoped he could bamboozle Trump’s handlers, and introduce them to the hallowed GOP tradition of “dogwhistling” racism/sexism/xenophobia. Bad guess, Paulie!
…Whatever the reason, Ryan has seemed to grow more visibly dyspeptic about his lot in life since returning to Washington. At a press conference last month, he became uncharacteristically testy with reporters when they asked him about Trump’s proclamation that Vladimir Putin was a stronger leader than President Obama.
“Do you think I’m going to stand up here and be an election pundit?” Ryan responded sharply. “I’ve got other things to do in this job. Yeah, he’s the nominee of our party, because he won our nomination fair and square. I’m not going to sit up here and do the tit for tat on what Donald said last night, or the night before, and Hillary versus Donald. That is not my job, and I’m not going to be the election year pundit commenting on all these little things. I’ll leave it at that.”…
You call yourself a Catholic, Mr. Ryan; you should’ve remembered the warning about avoiding the near occasion of sin. Trump’s philosophy is not much different than yours — he’s just more honest about his own selfishness and greed.
Go cry on your hero Ayn Rand’s grave, ya little blue-eyed weasel.
Paul Ryan on Trump tax bombshell: 'I don't think it's harmful' https://t.co/SVXpr36d9J pic.twitter.com/8LYO0rVYrG
— The Hill (@thehill) October 4, 2016
anyone who thinks this story was designed to redeem paul ryan should unfollow me and never speak my name again https://t.co/q6o7TBX0Xl
— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) October 4, 2016
Major Major Major Major
oh, paul.
man, fuck that guy.
Mary G
That is primo shade right there. The ending is my favorite:
All the little emperors losing their clothes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I started to read Coppins’ book on the Republican primary. The chapters on Trump and Rubio/Bush were actually pretty good, but the chapter on Ryan read like it was written by Ryan’s campaign manager and edited by his mother. The next chapter was building into a puff piece on Ari Fleischer, so I gave up. Ayn Rand was never mentioned
Suzanne
World’s smallest violin, playing for Paul Ryan.
Unprincipled douche is unprincipled.
JordanRules
Boehner grins and pours another.
amk
weary martyr? this perennial government moocher? wtf?
Bruce Webb
@Suzanne: “You say douche, I say duce, can’t we call the whole thing off?”
(Apologies to Fred Astaire. Who never did anything to me)
Another Scott
Ryan is a failure. One shouldn’t expect anything less from a con-man.
Ryan promised to pass a budget using “regular order”, remember? (from April):
The GOP came within 2 days of shutting down the government again. In an election year. When they’ve got the biggest majority since 1949 or so.
He’s unwilling to use the power of his office for the good of the country. He only cares about winning for the GOP, not for actually doing his job. Party first!
It will be so good when the Teabaggers are back benchers and the Democrats are in control again. Here’s hoping it happens come January…
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve in the ATL
Bull fucking shit
Mnemosyne
I can barely articulate the rage this induces in me as a recovering Catholic. Fuck you, you sanctimonious pricks. You have no fucking idea what actual suffering is, and you think everyone should give your tiny little paper cut the same amount of attention as they would someone else’s sucking chest wound.
Go cry on your giant pile of money, Paul. It’s all you cared about anyway.
amk
donnie dick was basically a fuck you establishment choice from the gop base nuts. When he bombs, with these nuts blame it on the establishment and start a new wingnutz party?
Ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
At the very least.
Keith P.
“No Guts, No Glory: The Paul Ryan Story”…available at Barnes and Nobles this Christmas!
Major Major Major Major
@Keith P.: worst present ever
Aleta
-Andy Borowitz, NYer
TriassicSands
I just read in the NY Times that Kelly Ayotte (F, NH) called Trump a role model. When her social media account(s) lit up with protest she backtracked and said neither candidate is a good role model.
In other news, Kelly Ayotte has called O.J. Simpson “Husband of the Millennium;” Ted Bundy “Best Date;” and Jeffrey Dahmer “Best Chef.”
NotMax
As a statement intended to be serious. diagnoses the problem succinctly.
As levity, right up there with “pull my finger.”
Villago Delenda Est
There’s no honor there to defend. None. He is not an honorable man.
Aleta
The guy who barged into an apolitical soup kitchen without permission and pretended to wash clean dishes with his children, even though everything had ended, all for a fake photo has been robbed of his reputation “as a paragon of decency, earnestness, and principle.”
“I’ve got other things to do in this job,” said the paragon of virtue as he busily shirked responsibility.
Dog Dawg Damn
So apparently the big October wiki ratfuck is going to be released in 30 mins and all the Pepe racists are on Twitter like the night before Kristallnacht.
What is this world coming to.
opiejeanne
Last Monday I had an incomplete colonoscopy that I was worried about beforehand and a bunch of you cheered me up and told me I wouldn’t die, and I thank you very much for that.
The disclosure that death was a possibility was what set me off, and I was very glad to wake up until they told me they had only been able to see a small portion of my colon.
So today I had a CT Colonography, after purging, drinking a barium shake (mocha, and they even included a straw!), and sticking to a liquid diet. Then they blew smoke up my ass and ran me through a big noisy donut scanning machine while a man’s voice told me to breathe in, breath out, stop breathing……………. breathe.
Actually, it wasn’t smoke, just carbon dioxide, and it was a weird experience, but the whole thing was much easier than the previous Monday’s adventure. I now know how much prep to drink and when to stop, and that the barium shakes now taste ok. Also, letting them make animal balloons with my intestines was entertaining for everyone and really not a bad experience, although they are making strange noises now and won’t stop.
I’ll know in a couple of days what they find, and if anything more needs to be done. Not sure but I would guess it would be laparoscopic surgery if they find any polyps, because they can’t get to them any other way.
I’m still laughing because after she inserted the tube in my bottom she stopped and asked if it was in my rectum or my vagina. I behaved myself but I really had to bite my tongue and not say anything risqué.
Aleta
@TriassicSands: “Dick Cheney has always been my lodestar,” Ms. Ayotte explained.
Another Scott
@opiejeanne: :-) Keep up the good humor!
Fingers crossed for good news. Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
opiejeanne
@TriassicSands: Her backtrack really exposed her as the opportunistic twit we know she is, but now she may not be able to count on the Trumpsters’ votes, or hopefully anyone decent who is paying attention.
mike in dc
If Clinton is elected, and Ryan and McConnell give her the Obama treatment, how does Ryan win a general election campaign as a guy who made sure nothing happened to benefit the American people for 4 years? If he works with her, how does Ryan win a primary contest as a guy who worked with “Hitlery”?
Aleta
@opiejeanne: Glad to know you’re through it.
opiejeanne
@Another Scott: Thanks. :-D
This was more fun than the colonoscopy was, the prep was a lot easier, the procedure wasn’t bad, and I was awake. There were no polyps in the part of my colon that they did see a week ago, and there is no record of them in me or anyone in my family, nor cancer anywhere in the family so I’m pretty hopeful.
Peale
@Dog Dawg Damn: seriously? Couldn’t they do this during normal business hours?
opiejeanne
@Aleta: Thanks. I was pleasantly surprised because they warned me that it would be unpleasant, I would experience cramping, and it really wasn’t bad at all. Just mildly uncomfortable and very interesting. I did close my eyes most of the time that I was in the CT tunnel, but it was open at both ends and not very long so I didn’t feel claustrophobic. It probably helped that the ceiling was not right above my nose, but inside it I was unsure how close it really was so I reached up and touched it once.
Currently experiencing elevated levels of motility; those balloon animals are still misbehaving.
amk
@Dog Dawg Damn: law of diminishing returns.
opiejeanne
@Dog Dawg Damn: Did you see the article about Trump’s creditors making him live on $450,000 a month for a while? I just don’t know how he managed.
piratedan
well… sure Ryan “cultivated” that image… fuck it was carefully crafted by the Village itself. He was the fair haired lad, the GOP policy wonk and we come to find out that he was a bleeping C- minus student who was popular because he was on the swim team.
Waiting for the inevitable piece from the Village where they feel all betrayed because none of these anointed really have a good idea on how any of this shit works and those that do, have sold their souls to ensure that it damn well won’t work and fuck everyone else, they got their pie and there’s none left for you, so kindly fuck off.
and these are the same asshats that paint Clinton as a serial liar, untrustworthy and if not the daughter of Satan, maybe she’s one of her hand-maidens and instead of actually talking about her mistakes, and analyzing her positions, its all character debate, all the time and these guys wouldn’t know a policy if it fell on them out of the sky.
It would be really nice to have a two party system again instead of one party trying to endless unfuck the disasters of the other.
Dog Dawg Damn
@opiejeanne: I know. Vagina is expensive!
Steeplejack (tablet)
@opiejeanne:
Glad it turned out okay. Hope the results are, uh, clean.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Peale:
It is normal business hours—in Russia!
TriassicSands
@opiejeanne:
The race in NH is very close. It would be nice if this had a positive effect. The latest projections I’ve seen for the Senate give the Dems a very slight advantage in taking the Senate. That’s a recent change. An Ayotte loss would be a great thing.
Villago Delenda Est
@piratedan:
Yet another reason for my nym.@
Aleta:
Since Mary Matalin is now a Libertarian, I guess Kelly here is the Bellatrix Lestrange of the GOP now.
TriassicSands
@piratedan:
The changes necessary for a workable two-party system are difficult to imagine happening any time soon.
In countries like Canada, both parties have accepted certain things as given — like universal health care. That means that changing parties doesn’t entail attempts to roll back the clock decades and strip millions of people of their coverage. When will the Republicans accept that we need universal coverage? Worse, it isn’t just universal health care. It’s also Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, SNAP…in short, the entire social safety net.
opiejeanne
@Dog Dawg Damn: I’ll bet he didn’t say vagina.
Dog Dawg Damn
@opiejeanne: that’s the quote that was recorded. I’m sure he’s said worse off record
piratedan
@TriassicSands: no argument TS, hell, those fuckers are STILL fighting the goddamn Civil War… let us fly those confederate flags in national cemeteries… still have a healthy portion of dipshits out there braying about “heritage”. Not to mention (as you cited) the fucking New Deal of 80 years ago and The Great Society of 50. If given the chance, these numbnuts would take away electricity in the Tennessee Valley just to prove that they could.
They don’t want to be connected to the rest of the world, they want it to be 1840, they could have them some fine breeding stock and raise cotton and peanuts and pretend to be the lords of all creation.
opiejeanne
@Dog Dawg Damn: I know what was said on Howard Stern’s show. You and I both know the word he used the day of his wedding. Lawrence O’Donnell was nearly livid describing that conversation as the “poetry” of love expressed by Donald on his wedding day.
Dog Dawg Damn
@opiejeanne: oh I haven’t heard about that yet.
One thing he has done is laid bare the hypocrisy of the religious right. Never let them forget this.
hellslittlestangel
That was true for me too until I stopped seeing rotten motherfuckers as heroes.
opiejeanne
@piratedan: I have heard people opine that life was so much simpler then, and then sigh. It wasn’t, and it was brutish and short for most people.
At Valley Forge I pointed out to a guy who was sighing about the simpler life at the time of the Revolutionary War, that dental care was lousy and diseases wiped out whole villages, and there was no polio vaccine, nor any for smallpox* or the other diseases that we have conquered. These really are the good old days.
I didn’t mention that there was an innoculation for smallpox at the time, or that preachers in Philadelphia railed against it because it went against “God’s Law”. Martha Washington took her children into Philly to have them innoculated against it. After all, George had smallpox scarring on his face from a bout of it.
opiejeanne
@Dog Dawg Damn: That was when the comment became public, on one of Stern’s shows. It’s been all over twitter, and O’Donnell played a tape of it last week.
Oh, I love the sanctimony, I love being told by people with Deplorable in their nyms that Democrats aren’t Christians. Stupid.
Dog Dawg Damn
@opiejeanne: it’s literally a full time job keeping track of all his bullshit. This election can’t end soon enough.
Bruce K
Isn’t Paul Ryan the one that Mr. Pierce hung with the cognomen “zombie-eyed granny starver”?
And for some reason the old Spaceballs quote comes to mind: “It’s a lovely ship. I think you should go down with it.”
(attr. John Boehner, perhaps?)
Linda
Everybody within Trump’s orbit had a chance to hang onto their proximity to his potential power, or their self respect and dignity, but not both. Everybody made the choice to grab onto the one thing that they really valued.
Mary G
I am watching the Wikileaks press conference which is “how great we are” commercial and “how mean America is being to Julian” with a bunch of women who are Assange groupies. I keep thinking that I should give up and go to sleep, but my curiosity is probably going to keep me awake.
Botsplainer
At what point election night does the Ecuadorian security staff throw Assange, his bathrobe and his pillow out the front gate of the embassy? When the networks call it for Hill, or when Ivanka gives the concession?
I just want it to be on video.
scav
@Mary G: Well, I’m in a sudden diabetic coma after a fooling dip into a David Brooks column. He’s apparently dipped his quill pen in cotton candy and writing treacly fluff about the lovely society with sweet reverence for forebears and gentle tax-paying citizens. It really is a luffly luffly pink column with no nada zip nutritional value, pure sugar sentimentality suspended in air that fades away to nothing. So basically, the internet is reduced to a rock and a hard place.
Mary G
Looks like the whole thing was a scam. Watching conservatives gnashing their teeth on Twitter is a blast. Hillary bought them off!
scav
@Mary G: No. Has the stage collapsed yet?
msb
Well said, Another Scott. Off to vote my absentee ballot …
Peale
@Mary G: well, if you can’t trust Assange, who can you trust?
Amir Khalid
@Bruce K:
Yes he is. And the nickname suits him so well, don’t you think?
@Mary G:
Assange has got nothing. We were all expecting this. He had nothing the last couple of times he did this, too.
Baud
@Mary G:
This is my shocked face.
?
Mary G
The best comment I’ve seen is that it’s only lacking the Rick Astley video.
Baud
How many tests does Hillary have to pass?
Mary G
It’s major amateur hour. The audio is horrible – one of the Twitterers said it’s better at the drive thru.
sukabi
@Mary G: did he at least make a plea for $$? He’s not a very good scammer if he didn’t.
Mary G
I am watching on a right-wing channel. They have a split screen with Alex Jones on the other side. There is no sound, but he is pissed off. Odds of a heart attack are high. HEE HEE HEE ,
Baud
@Mary G: Hee Hee. Move it to the new thread. This is good stuff.
Mary G
@sukabi: Oh yeah, big time plea for moola, for computers, lawyers. He’s also hawking books and DVDs.
sukabi
@Mary G: Jones is likely to stroke out first…his bp has to be off the charts…gets all red faced, like a cartoon thermometer that’s about to explode…kind of like beck got deep in his “conspiracy” rants.
NorthLeft12
I have not read the article yet, but my first thought was “is the author predicting further treachery by Ryan based on his history of deceit, dishonesty, and hypocrisy?”
NorthLeft12
@TriassicSands: BTW, we have more than two political parties. Liberals [not really, more like center lefties], Conservatives [sort of, but not like the RWNJs you guys are saddled with], New Democrat Party [capitalist socialists with strong ties to labour unions], Bloc Quebecois [regional party that is on the left side except for cultural and immigration issues], and the Green Party [not really a credible party yet but everyone likes their leader and one member of Parliament, Elizabeth May].
But your point about our social programs is correct. Their is a very broad acceptance of the value and popularity of our health care, pensions, and other welfare systems. It is suicide [especially wrt health care] to try and run on privatizing or getting rid of them. Although there are always conservatives who believe the welfare programs are too generous and discourage people from working or starving to death in the streets.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Tell the truth.
Lurking Canadian
@NorthLeft12: Yeah. Harper’s people didn’t leave health care alone because they believe in it. They left it alone because they would have gotten murdered at the ballot box if they tried.
As we saw at the time of the non stimulus that led to an anti-Con coalition that led to a prorogue that led to a stimulus, when faced with a choice between his principles and his power, Harper picked power every time.
Elizabelle
K-Thug took some hide off Ryan in his column yesterday. He’s about the only columnist who ever does.
Paul Krugman, NY Times, “Trump’s Fellow Travelers”
Bobbo
You misspelled “fraudulent coward.”
NorthLeft12
@Lurking Canadian: Harper: Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Lurking Canadian
@NorthLeft12: Amen.
Turgidson
Is it really that hard for people to just acknowledge the obvious: Paul “Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver” Ryan endorsed the Small-Handed Overgrown Cheeto for two reasons: 1) Supreme Court; and 2) Kill Medicare. He knows damn well that HRC is the safer, saner choice in most respects and I’m sure he will feel more comfortable with her in charge of the nuke codes than he would with Trump.
But he has priorities.
Of course, there’s always a chance that Trump would nominate Omarosa to SCOTUS and propose to yuuugely expand Medicare to make it the greatest wealth transfer, believe me. But Paulie thinks he’ll at least have a chance he’ll get what he wants from Trump while he knows HRC will tell him to go pound sand. So Trumpenfuhrer it is.